SARAH JAROSZ: Texas to Boston to NYC to the Grammys

Tuesday

Mar 14, 2017 at 2:27 PMMar 14, 2017 at 2:30 PM

By Jay N. MillerFor The Patriot Ledger

Sarah Jarosz' musical journey has taken her to some unexpected destinations, but earlier this year it took her to the best one of all, when she came home from the 2017 Grammy Awards with two trophies, for Best Folk Album, and Best American Roots Performance, for her latest album "Undercurrents."

Jarosz, a Texas native who graduated from the New England Conservatory in 2013, is headlining the Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River on Thursday night (March 16), and the show is already sold out. (Jarosz is also performing at Infinity Hall, Norfolk, Connecticut on March 18.)

"It's been really cool since the Grammys," said Jarosz from her New York City base this week. "We're seeing a lot more sold out shows on this tour, and I've seen a really nice outpouring of congratulations and support on the road from fans and fellow musicians. The whole Grammy thing is still kind of sinking in, but it is without doubt a big dream come true. It does feel like I'm getting a lot of new audience members too, and like any musician, you always hope to get your music in front of new ears."

Expanding her own ears was one reason Jarosz, who grew up in Austin, Texas and loved playing folk, country and bluegrass music, decided to come to the New England Conservatory for college.

"I had always wanted to go to college, not just for the great experience of learning and living in a new city, but also musically to get out of my comfort zone," Jarosz explained. "I became pretty steadfast early on that it was going to be Boston, because a lot of the friends I had made in music spoke so highly of it as a happening city for music of all kinds. Then, I found out through Aiofe O'Donovan about the Conservatory's Contemporary Improvisation program, which she had done nine years before, and I thought it was the perfect fit for me."

"I still worked with my basic elements of folk music when I started in college," Jarosz noted, "but I ws pretty quickly pushing way beyond that too. I was pretty much exploring immediately, and for instance, I had a 16th Century Counterpoint class, to improv ensembles, to studying the work of Billie Holiday. The whole thing stretched my ears in ways I hadn't ever done before, and it was a really good thing for my development as a musician."

Like many of the finest musical figures, Jarosz is still an omnivorous music fan, continually seeking out new sounds.

"Oh I am still a voracious listener, listening to all kinds of music," she said. "The interesting thing about that four years of college, which pushed me way outside my comfort zone, was that all that exploring helped me to know my own musical identity better. I think that's even more evident with this last album, which I feel is truer, and more honest an expression of my music than anything I've done."

Jarosz did think that sometimes her immersion in all sorts of music might have had her de-constructing everything, instead of just enjoying it, and she's tried to not be too technical or academic since then.

"I'm a huge fan of music first, and I think with a program like that has you loving a lot of different things, but also winds up having you critiquing it a lot too," said Jarosz. "I felt like a critic at some times there, and I have tried since graduation to going back to being a music lover. I am consistently amazed at how much awesome music there is in the world. For me, it was helpful to learn the what and why of it, but it's also good to just appreciate it as a music fan."

Jarosz has won some notable fans herself, as Elton John wrote a fabulously positive review after seeing her and songsmith Parker Millsap in concert last year. And then last summer, she sang for two weeks on a cruise to Alaska with Garrison Keillor and "The Prairie Home Companion" folks.

"Elton came to our show in Atlanta and it was a total thrill," said Jarosz. "He hung out at our gig for about four hours, an hour before and an hour after the show. It was wild and so inspiring. he had called me out of the blue last summer, and told me how much he loved this record. I came home one day and saw a missed call from the United Kingdom. Then my publicist told me Elton was trying to get in touch. I couldn't believe it, but he said he likes to reach out to people whose music he likes, because others did that for him when he was starting out. He's another person who loves to find new music--they would close down the old Tower Records in Los Angeles when Elton came to shop there. But that was very special and so cool."

"That was my first time to Alaska, with Garrison Keillor, and it was a fun two weeks, with lots of incredible scenery," Jarosz added. "Definitely not a bad gig at all."

On this current tour, the multi-instrumentalist (guitar, banjo, mandolin) Jarosz is accompanied by two musicians, guitarist Anthony DaCosta and bassist Jeff Picker.

"Last year I was playing with Jed Hughes on guitar, and he's also on the album," Jarosz ntoed. "But Jed's had a baby and wanted to spend more time off the road. I have crossed paths with Anthony for the past decade, but we were recently reunited at the Fayetteville Roots Festival in Arkansas, and his playing and singing is a great help. Jeff Picker was one of those people I became immediately aware of when I moved to New York after college, a very talented and versatile bassist. One thing about this last album is that it was recorded pretty true to actual performance, so it is fun to re-create these songs in concert. Some of my previous records had overdubs and such, so my live shows always felt more stripped down when I did those shows. We fixed that by making this last record much more like my live shows."

Jarosz has also just announced a summer tour called American Acoustic, based on a special Kennedy Center show from last year, which features The Punch Brothers, Julian Lage, and I'm With Her, a trio featuring Jarosz, Sara Watkins and Aiofe O'Donovan. That tour starts in July and touches down at the Newport Folk Festival on July 30.